News | Sunday, 28 February 2010

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‘Ruins represent aspirations of post-war Maltese society’

Government’s project description statement of Opera House justifies keeping ruins for having ‘provoked emotions and dreams of all kinds’

James Debono
The consultants who drew up government’s report to MEPA on the reconstruction of the Royal Opera House are arguing that the German-bombed ruins should stay as they are because they represent post-war Malta’s “ambitions and aspirations”.
In what reads like a reversal of the frustrations that accompanied over 50 years of failure to reconstruct the Opera House, ADI Associates have argued in their project description statement that these ruins have “provoked innumerable emotions, projections and dreams of all kinds” and “architectural proposals that are a reflection of the ambitions and aspirations of post-war Maltese society.”
The Project Description Statement (PDS), which uses such grand descriptions in pushing for Renzo Piano’s roofless theatre to be built on the present ruins, claims his opera house has the potential of becoming “one of the most magical performance spaces in the Mediterranean world.”
It conclusively states that the “opera house site” does not provide space for a modern opera house with all its logistical requirements.
A PDS is submitted at the beginning of the planning process before the Malta Environment and Planning Authority sets its terms of reference for an environmental impact assessment.
The building of a parliament on Freedom Square is being justified as a way of respecting the “old street alignment of Valletta”. As a low carbon building, it will be fuelled by geothermal technology, solar water-heating, and photovoltaic energy. Boreholes will accommodate a geothermal station.
According to the proposed plans, the new parliament will consist of “two massive volumes of stone” supported by stilts that recede from the façade, to create the impression of being suspended in the air.
The PDS also seems to come to a blinkered conclusion that Malta’s two-party system will be a permanent fact of democratic life, by allocating four stations each for the “government party and the opposition party” for use of their “research analysts”.
The parliament is also being designed to allow for an increase of parliament’s staff from 36 to 56, and giving offices for all MPs, ministers, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt

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